When Hilligoss was pulpit-cursing citizen critics of the sleazy city-funded incubator, what did he and fellow pastor/incubator official Derrick Blue know about theft allegations against its CFO?
By BILLY TOWNSEND
Pretty big news out of Lake Wales on the Pastor Mayor Jack Hilligoss beat. Here’s the key excerpt from The Ledger, which followed up on a story from the Lake Wales News. Note the parts in bold, especially the date in bold:
The former chief financial officer for the Florida Development Corp., which runs the BizLinc small-business incubator in Lake Wales, was arrested last Friday on accusations of embezzling more than $250,000 from the organization.
Charles Young Jr., 54, was arrested Friday at his Lithia home and faces one first-degree felony count of grand theft of more than $100,000 and one first-degree felony count of obtaining more than $50,000 in property through fraud. Young is being held in jail without bond for extradition to Polk County.
“We thank the professionals at the Lake Wales Police Department for their thorough investigation into the actions of FDC’s former Chief Financial Officer Charles Young, Jr., leading to his arrest last Friday,” read a news statement from FDC. “We cannot say anything further at this time other than to note that we will continue to work with law enforcement to see that justice is done in this matter.”
In November 2023, officials with FDC reached out to Lake Wales Police Department to report suspected theft within the company about three months after terminating Young’s employment.
We’re going to come back to that date and that “we cannot say anything” in a just a second. But let’s pivot quickly to the Lake Wales News to understand who FDC actually is.
Young is a partner, along with Derek Blue and Efrain Cornier, in Florida Development Corp. LLC, which has a $1.2 million no-recourse contract with the City of Lake Wales for the operation of the business incubator at 225 Lincoln Avenue. The officers of that corporation then created BizLinc LLC, apparently to run the operation. As of Monday, the “about” page of the FDC website has been removed.
Derrick Blue [correct spelling appears to be Derrick] is both a partner in FDC, which runs the incubator on city money, and a pastor at Mayor Jack Hilligoss’s High Point Church. Blue is part of the rogue church’s “teaching team.” That’s him on the left, next to Hilligoss.
November 2023 is a long time before February 2024. Who specifically went to LWPD?
Bottom line: Hilligoss, from his pulpit, made big news in February 2024 when denounced citizen critics of this incubator as “wicked” from his pulpit during church service. About the same time, Blue and other FDC supporters passionately and piously defended the incubator and attacked its critics at a Lake Wales City Commission meeting. They all had lots to say.
So you can see how funny the “we cannot say anything” hedge is.
Yet, somehow, all these folks managed not to say that someone with FDC itself had reported the incubator CFO three months earlier for stealing big money from the city.
So which “FDC officials” reported Young to Lake Wales Police? Was it High Point pastor Blue? Was it partner Efrain Cornier? Did Blue know about the allegation? Did he tell Hilligoss, his fellow “teaching team” member? Did Hilligoss know about these theft accusations when he decided to attack Lake Wales citizens from his pulpit? Is that taxpayer money just gone? Is FDC on the hook for repaying what its CFO is accused of stealing?
I don’t have the answers to these questions with precision; and I’m not jumping into the Lake Wales beat. But if I was on that beat, I would try very hard to pin down, who, specifically, went to Lake Wales PD — and how widespread was that knowledge in the city.
And I would just who, exactly, is “wicked?”
Anyway, if you want some deeper background on this, here are the two articles I wrote about it in February. Somehow, this entire sorry parable seems vaguely Biblical in the comeuppance it’s delivering
